Phytohormones are natural chemical messengers that play critical roles in the regulation of plant growth and development as well as responses to biotic and abiotic stress factors, maintaining plant homeostasis, and allowing adaptation to environmental changes. The discovery of a new class of phytohormones, the brassinosteroids (BRs), almost 40 years ago opened a new era for the studies of plant growth and development and introduced new perspectives in the regulation of agronomic traits through their use in agriculture. BRs are a group of hormones with significant growth regulatory activity that act independently and in conjunction with other phytohormones to control different BR-regulated activities. Genetic and molecular research has increased our understanding of how BRs and their cross-talk with other phytohormones control several physiological and developmental processes. The present article provides an overview of BRs’ discovery as well as recent findings on their interactions with other phytohormones at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels, in addition to clarifying how their network works to modulate plant growth, development, and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses.
O método tampão SMP de determinação da necessidade de calagem foi estudado em 23 amostras de solos do Estado de São Paulo. A calibração do método foi feita através das necessidades de calagem para valores de pH de 5,5, 6,0 e 6,5 obtidos de curvas de neutralização dos solos com CaCO3. Foram testadas três relações de solução-tampão e solo, optando-se por uma modificação que deu ao método maior sensibilidade para baixas necessidades de calagem, se comparada com a metodologia original. Foi feita a comparação do método SMP com outros critérios de determinação da necessidade de calagem. O método SMP é eficaz para determinar a quantidade de CaCO3 para atingir determinado valor de pH do solo. Tal não acontece com o cálculo baseado na relação entre pH e saturação em bases, que leva a valores muito baixos. O critério Al x 1,5 permite chegar a valores de pH em torno de 5,5. A elevação dos valores de Ca + Mg a 2 ou 3 meq/100cm³ de terra não permite prever o pH a ser obtido no solo, consistindo, deste ponto de vista, em um critério muito inseguro para calcular a necessidade de calagem dos solos.
Brassinosteroids are a new class of plant hormones with a polyoxygenated steroid structure showing pronounced plant growth regulatory activity. This review covers their natural occurrence, biological and chromatographic methods for their detection, biosynthesis and metabolism, biological activity, structure-activity relationships and prospective agricultural uses.
Pilocarpus microphyllus (Rutaceae), popularly known as jaborandi, is the only commercial source of an imidazole alkaloid named pilocarpine. In the present study, the variation in the profile of imidazole alkaloids in different seasons and in different parts of the P. microphyllus plant during the summer was analyzed by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry in the positive ion mode [ESI(+)-MS]. The fingerprints of these extracts repeatedly presented similar ions which were mass-selected and studied by tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS and ESI-MS/MS/MS) and high-resolution mass spectrometry, resulting in the characterization of eight imidazole alkaloids. The data from the ESI(+)-MS fingerprints were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA), showing that pilocarpine was present mainly in the summer, whereas in the autumn mainly pilosine and winter anhydropilosine were found. Three alkaloids, reported for the first time in extracts of P. microphyllus, were found. Analysis of the distribution of alkaloids in different parts of the plant during the summer showed that, although pilocarpine was present throughout the plant, 13-nor-8(11)-dihydropilocarpine was found mainly in the stem, pilosine and anhydropilosine were present mainly in the intermediary leaves, and the three new alkaloids were mainly found in the leaflets and petioles. Based on the dissociation patterns of these alkaloids, we observed that there were three structurally related groups of alkaloids differing in their distribution in the plant tissues and responding differently to seasonal variations. These results also indicate that these three groups of alkaloids could belong to intermediate, parallel or competitive pathways for pilocarpine formation biosynthesis.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.